The street act 1 Essay

The main character in The Street, Ann Petry shows that even in the hardest of times, one should continue to push forward, even if the “wind [pushes]” them away. The wind is trying to prevent those outside, especially Lutie, from accomplishing their mission/goals. The wind blocks Lutie’s path, almost as if it were the difficult situation she is going through. The wind forced the Lutie to shiver as “its cold fingers…touched the back of her neck, explored the sides of her head”. Petry also shows that the wind is doing every possible thing to discourage the people walking on the street, by finding “chicken bones and pork-chop bones”, and “every scrap of paper along the street”.

The “violent assault” of the wind forced not only Lutie, but also every other pedestrian on the street back to their homes as it grew “difficult to breathe”. also indicating that the wind is a hardship that one must face outside of their cozy, warm home. Looking at lutes’ situation/ troubles, the win seems almost like it has something’s against them and all the pedestrians as if the city was cursed up on. Most of the details are primarily aimed towards the win and what it is doing to the scenario, such as when it “sucked [the] window shades out through the top” of opened windows, and “stuck its fingers” inside of people’s coat collars.

In other words, the wind is deliberately interfering with its surroundings, creating a stressful situation where one would need a sanctuary to avoid the sinister gusts. The “flapping” of the shades, “every scrap of paper” being thrown against the people on the streets, and “dirt and dust” being lifted into the air “making it difficult to breathe”, creating a chaotic atmosphere. In The Street, Petry creates the idea that in hard, stressful times, one needs a sanctuary to avoid “the wind” of life’s powerful gusts. Through three crucial, subtle components, personification, imagery, and selection of detail, the purpose of the story was perfectly conveyed. Petry intended for the wind to have a mind, as it was forcing people back to their sanctuaries.

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